Friday, August 30, 2013

Have you ever booked a Tatkal ticket online on the IRCTC
website? I haven’t. But I have seen my father doing it. Again and again.
Keeping his tea cup beside him, he sits upright in front of his laptop at 9:45am
sharp. That too once every two weeks atleast. If some relatives from my
village, who do not have any access to internet, have to visit any place in
India urgently, they call my papa to book the Tatkal tickets. Plus he books
normal tickets in advance for those two months school holidays during which my
cousins pay a visit to the capital every year. In addition, he books tickets
for my travel from Chandigarh to Delhi every alternate weekend. But my brother
is the best. He gets flight tickets in advance to come from Chennai to Delhi
after the end of each semester exams:(

But last week, after a 40 days superb stay at Mangalore
ECC at Infosys, it was time to get back to my base location-Chandigarh. As the status of all the
seats in Rajdhani 2nd class showed waiting list, we were in complete
panic mode. We had tried to book Tatkal tickets online ourselves, but the website had
crashed and took longer time to recover in the office. Later, we could only see waiting list
of 17, 32, 60, and 70 on the screen! And we couldn’t be send off in a flight
because of our lower job levels (my brother smirked a lot when he heard this)
and our stay couldn’t be extended further. So we decided to go and manually try
for Tatkal tickets at the Mangalore railway station one day before the
scheduled Rajdhani departure. I told my mother and she started arguing on the
phone. You are a girl. How will you stand in such a long queue? Those queues
go well outside the station! People stand under the hot sun and there is lots
of pushing and poking! YOU ARE NOT GOING! I’ll tell your father to book the
ticket right now himself! She stopped only to catch her breath and I
stole my chance. I told her that it wasn’t just my ticket that had to be
booked. My entire team was there too. How can I tell my father to book tickets
that would make him shell out around INR 15550 at one go? I couldn’t. I didn’t
want him to.

So on the early morning of Friday, I went to the station with
one of my team-mates. Just the two of us. Others were not needed. One person could
book four tickets manually and so just the two of us were enough. We reached
the station well before 7:00am and stared. I had imagined people lining up to
the counter and long queues going well outside the station. I had visualized
passengers sleeping on the platform, waiting for the Tatkal counter to open at 10:00am.
I had imagined irritated people glaring at the yawning railway officials,
poking, groping and pushing at their neighbours standing ahead of them. But
this was so not that.

We went inside the station and enquired about the Tatkal
counter. A fat man pointed outside the station. Surprised, we came outside
again and looked closely rotating ourselves 360 degrees to spot anything
familiar. Far away from us, just at the corner of the station was a RESERVATION
CENTRE banner. We ran. I rushed past a speed post office and a deserted KSRTC
canteen. We came in front of the sign board and turned to our left. The main
gate of the counter was closed. The shutter was down with a big rusty looking
old lock on it. Few people stood outside the shutter like a hurdle. Some men
were smoking while some just hung around. No queue whatsoever. I sighed
reassuringly towards my team-mate but he frowned. There were no women in
sight. The group in front of us consisted of only men. I hesitated for one
moment and then started going forward. But he stopped me and pointed at a
deserted area. He wanted to stand in the men crowd alone. You can join later
when the shutter opens, he said. In my heart I was much grateful to him. When I
moved towards a corner that was opened to a starting point of a railway track,
I saw few men staring at me again. They turned away soon as if
embarrassed that I had caught them staring at my sleep deprived face and messy
hair.

Nothing exciting happened except a couple of vans dropping off
long packages of speed posts and a couple of nearby villagers walking on the
railway track with a small plastic bottle in their hand. There was a red engine
ahead of me in sight. I had a sudden vision of Shahrukh Khan’s dance in chal-chaiya-chaiya.
Around 7:30am, the shutter opened and there was a mad rush to get inside fast
ahead of everybody else. I too ran and entered but my colleague had already
reserved third place in the queue in front of the Self Tatkal Counter-counter
for passengers purchasing Tatkal tickets for self-travel only: - no
agents/representatives are entertained. The room was rectangular and
contained seven counters. There were signs of NO Smoking Please, Tatkal
Reservation Scheme and Please Tender Exact Fare plastered on the old
walls. There was a black board that showed white bold lines referring to Senior
Citizen’s Rule- Senior citizens of the age of 60 and above (Gents) and age
of 56 and above (ladies) can avail concession at 40% below the basic fare in
all classes but to carry some proof of age and produce it on demand. There
was a huge sign put up that claimed physically challenged persons can buy
their concession tickets at any counter without queue.

“Excuse me?”

I turned and saw a middle-aged man with a big shoulder bag. He
was sweating profusely under its heavy weight. He pointed at a sign and asked
me what it meant. I went closer to look at it. It read FOR JOURNEY COMMENCING
FROM 01.10.2013:- BOARDING CHANGE PERMITTED AT THE TIME OF BOOKING ITSELF AND
ALSO UPTO 24HRS BEFORE DEPARTURE. I couldn’t make head or tail of it. Seeing my
blank look, the man looked away in frustration and asked another guy for help.
Your complete education is a total waste, I told myself.

I tore myself away from the sign boards and moved to the Train
departure timings at Mangalore Central board. The weirdest that I have
heard and travelled in are Flying Rani (Surat-Mumbai) and Garib Rath
Express (though no garib can afford the quoted fares easily). Here I found
many new names I had never heard before- Santragatchi Vivek Superfast
Express, Lokmanyatilak Terminus Matsyagandha Superfast Express, and Subramanya
Road Passenger etc. By the time it was 9.30am, the place had become
crowded. There was no separate queue for women. So my friend asked me to sit on
a seat while he stood in the queue. There were 4 rows of stiff iron seats. I
sat in one of them and peered at my neighbours. A dude in white t-shirt and
faded jeans was sleeping soundly, his mouth half opened. Next to him was a
middle aged man, picking his nose. Somebody’s phone rang loudly with chipkale-saiyaan-fevicol-se
ringtone. Then quite suddenly, an old man appeared next to me. He was too thin
and had a walking stick. Some hair that he had was as white as Albus
Dumbledore’s. He smiled a toothless grin on seeing me rising from my seat.

“Can you fill up this form?” he asked extending the Tatkal form in his
hand and a blue ball-point pen.

I took both from him and started filling up the details. He
refused to sit. I don’t know why. So I also stood up and filled the form for
him. I asked him all the details and he answered them. These mainly were Passenger
Name, Train Name, Train No., Date of Journey, Address,
Station From, Station To, and Signature. He signed in the
last and went away in one of the normal booking counters. Barely five minutes
had gone by when he came back again.

“Wrong train!” he declared and produced a new form under my
nose.

We filled up the new details again and he signed for the second
time. This time he sat next to me. I started discussing with him regarding his
vacation in Madras. He was going there to visit his daughter. He complained
about no separate queue for senior citizens at the Tatkal counter too. After a
few minutes, the Tatkal counter opened at 10:00am sharp. I went to my friend.
Now everybody were wide awake and alert. When our turn came, we paid the
required amount and got the tickets in next few seconds. Phew! So much
planning, getting up early, no bathing, no breakfast and lots of standing in a
queue just for that 2 minutes task! But the rain god had different plans in
store for us. It was raining heavily outside, just like always! So we had to
wait for next half an hour. When the downpour turned into drizzling, we walked
away fast to catch an auto that would take us to a nearest bus stop. And that
way my first tryst with the Tatkal ended- feeling hungry, my dress half wet in
the rain, sandals squeaking with every step and costly tickets to Chandigarh in
my purse. But the experience was good (hello! I didn’t have to stand in a long,
long queue!). But ask me to go back there again and you might get my mother
breaking the news that I am ill or have fractured my legs and therefore is
unavailable to go and stand in Tatkal:-)

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

The
Conjuring is an American horror movie directed by James Wan and released in US
on 19th July 2013. It released in India on 2nd August
2013. The movie revolves around the one case that Ed and Lorraine Warren,
paranormal investigators/ghost hunters, try to solve to save a family. Vera
Farmiga has played the lead female role of Lorraine Warren and Patrick Wilson
is in the leading male role of Ed Warren. I saw the trailor of the movie when I went to watch Bhaag Milkha Bhaag. The trailor was scary enough so much that I decided to watch the film whenever it releases, no matter what.

The
story unfolds in 1971 when a family of a husband, wife and five daughters move
into a dilapidated house, completely unaware of its past history. Strange
things keep happening to them. Firstly, their dog is found dead the next day.
The first day the same dog had refused to enter inside the house and kept
barking and growling at night. Carolyn, the mother, finds herself locked in a
cellar, while trying to stop the girls from playing hide and clap at night.
Later she realizes that her daughters are sleeping and someone else (a spirit)
is tempting her to play the game. One of her daughters declares that she likes
to talk to a boy who is sad and hides himself from others. Another daughter
feels that somebody keeps pulling her leg at night while she sleeps. Carolyn
suffers from bruises and scratches. She does not understand how or from where
she is getting hurt. All the clocks stop working at mysteriously at 3:07am. One
of their daughters starts sleep-walking and lands up near a cabinet/wardrobe
always at night.

Finally
Carolyn calls on Ed and Lorraine. They visit her house and declare that demonic
spirits are latching on the family members and feeding off on their mother.
Later more secrets are unveiled regarding the past history of the house and how
anybody who had ever owned the land in the past has suffered gruesome death.
They conclude that the house needs exorcism, an act that only priests from
church can perform. They contact the father of a church with proofs of demonic
presence in the house, who after a bit hesitation, becomes ready to help them.
Later, a spirit possesses Carolyn and tries to kill one of her daughters.
Everyone rushes to the spot and Ed tries to perform exorcism himself due to
lack of time. The possessed Carolyn shouts blood-curdling screams while the enchantments
are delivered by Ed. The spirit puts up a fight and refuses to leave Carolyn’s
body. In the end, due to combined efforts of exorcism and her husband’s
support, the spirit successfully is forced to leave Carolyn’s body. The family
comes together in the end and thank Ed and Lorraine for their help.

The
genre of the movie is horror and it successfully stands on it. There are scenes
which will scare you from the beginning till end. The theatre erupts in screams
(by girls mainly) and loud gasps occasionally. In some scenes, instinctively, I
had raised my stole over my specks to cover my vision. I knew a disfigured face
would appear after that pin-drop silence in the cellar or when that creaking
door of the room opens. My friend, unable to control herself, screamed in one
scene so loudly that her neighbor in the adjacent seat turned to look at her
and said ‘Don’t shout like that. You are scaring me!” Of course, some
young boys and men from the audience can always be counted upon. There were
some frustrating moments when I wanted to see who would appear when a music box
stops playing music with a mirror on its surface. But that moment was ruined
when somebody from the audience started howling like a wolf in advance.

I
expected some more from the movie. The previous history of the paranormal
investigators is shown in a rush. No firm story on that. How they met, how do
they cope with work pressure and how they achieve balance between their
personal and professional life is a mystery. I would have loved to see more of
their cases in the movie in detail. More scary scenes to view! The film
finishes within 2 hours. In the end, you are left to ask for more. But overall,
the movie is good/scary to watch. And yes, no need to get too scared.
It’s not those kinds of Hollywood horror films that you will keep feeling
scared even after going to your homes. For this movie, you sit in the theatre,
you feel scared on some scenes, you feel goose bumps and anticipate the next
scene, you shout and scream and the movie ends. That’s it. You leave all your
scary feelings behind on your seat and leave the cinema hall, after giving a swift look at your neighbour to confirm that his/her face is not disfigured:-)